October 3

“There are two kinds of love, confused together both in man’s nature and in our judgment on it – the love that desires to love, and the love that desires to be loved. The first is always a debtor to the world, the second always finds the world a debtor to him, and complains bitterly that the debt is unpaid. There is no more uncompromising creditor than the creditor for love, there is no avarice more grasping than his avarice. . . . Love that feeds on being loved, and not on loving, cannot conquer death; it turns traitor at the last, confessing its own baseness, that it served for the sake of the reward.

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“It is not love that hurts men. The craving for love, the turning earhly and heavenly affection into merchandise, these hurt, and suffering hurts that we make our own; but the love that brings pain is itself painless. In the midst of longing, heart-hunger, and all the forms of selfishness that we dignify with such high-sounding names, there is one thing at peace. That is love. And about it the passions sweep, grudging, exacting, contending with each other for their gains; but the prayer of love is not to receive joy, nor to escape from pain, only that it may give more, and give for ever.”

MAY KENDALL

“To love – that is the true revelation – the lifting up of the veil. It is as different from simply being loved, as night is from day.”

Mrs OLIPHANT